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Sunday, January 08, 2006

THE DAY THAT MAY HAVE TWO ENTRIES

I got a haircut and it is by far the worst thing to happen to me so far this year. My head looks like a radish. I may get mistaken for a soldier.

In the apartment below mine lives a huge dude who runs business like a smooth African American Tony Soprano. He’s always nice to me, tells me jokes when we bump into each other at the mailboxes or on the street. I call him Ike, but that’s not his real name. He’s got an extremely polite daughter named after a gemstone. Every time she sees me she says, “Hello. My name is _____. What’s your name?” I go through the same introduction I’ve been giving her for almost a year now. Does she forget me so easily? Or does the infrequency of our encounters make me seem like a blurry ghost? I almost wonder if that’s her way of feeling safe, is she does remember me but doesn‘t want to act like she does. I hate to beat a dead horse with this motif, but it’s a perfect manifestation of eternal reoccurrence. We literally play the same scenario out every single time, as if the child suffered from Korsakoff’s psychosis or Alzheimer’s. Her mother, Ike’s girlfriend, is always terribly nice to me. She smiles, says hi, and we share a moment of shaking our heads over the hilarity of children.

I came across a woman’s blog tonight that made me want to write a story. The blog seems to have only maintained a brief lifespan - but it may not be over. It’s written by a self professed “Gas pump virgin, small business owner, brain tumor survivor (hopefully), Mormon, closet diva, Leo, pampered wife, bookworm, recovering clog dancer.” But that’s not the compelling part. The title of the blog is Today I love Jared. Basically, this woman posts daily reasons why she loves her husband. One day she writes something sweet, like, “Today I love you because you are my favorite person of all time. The one I like to play with. The one I like to date. The one I like to laugh with and cry with and talk with. The one I want to call when something funny happens. The one I just enjoy being with.” Then she writes something a little enigmatic, “Today I love you because you said you would trade places with me.” And then something very curious, “Today I love you because of the tears and hugs we shared together in the Celestial Room at the temple. And because you are worthy to go to the temple. I look forward to having our family reap the blessings of the temple covenants throughout eternity.” If you’re intrigued, you can check it out here:

The following is the mélange of dvds I’ve watched over the last week: In the Realms of the Unreal, Grizzly Man, Murderball, Millions, The Beat My Heart Skipped, the Believer Wholphin disc, a pbs documentary on O’Keefe/Pollock/Warhol, a documentary on Noam Chomsky, and another doc called The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. I particularly enjoyed watching the parrots. What amazing creatures! I have to get sappy, so overt your eyes. To me, their most striking characteristic is that they physically need a mate in order to groom their heads where their own beaks can’t reach. The reason the movie gave for this being a necessity is that their feathers tend to grow like ingrown hairs, and so the partner’s job is to pluck out the ingrown feathers before they get too painful. Without a mate, a parrot stands to be in a world of hurt. But watching them pair up and rub beaks, they appeared to really enjoy each other’s company - beyond the physical need. They shared food with each other, spoke to one another, looked longingly into each other’s eyes. Reminded me of how penguins also have romantic, monogamous relationships - of course, sometimes those relationships only last for a season.